Black Stars
by Soalai
Summary: Amidst a famine and a fierce war, Tamaran endures struggles. Watching the suffering of her people from afar, Starfire wonders... Has Blackfire returned?
1. Tamaran's Fate

**Black Stars – Chapter 1: "Tamaran's Fate"  
**

Starfire sighed. It was late, and she knew she shouldn't be doing this. In fact, it was around midnight when she had wandered over to the Titans' main computer database to take a look at how her planet was faring. She knew, from messages she had received from Galfore, that Tamaran was undergoing hard times. Her home planet, normally covered with fields of majestic purple berries, hanging from bushes, with a beautiful pink sky and friendly people. It was in the midst of a famine, and she had seen the transmissions.

There was a lavender dust blowing everywhere. Where the bushes of zorka berries once stood, there were only crumbled, burnt shrubs. A few rotten berries were rolling around on the ground, falling off their old homes and smashing into rocks, then sliding off to the ground. They were scratched and caked in dirt when a group of miserably thin, bony children came with empty pails to collect what they could find of food. A very young boy, with curly red hair and a purple metal belt tied to a loincloth of a darker color, scrabbled out from the cliff. He stumbled over to the remains of the fruit fields, and collected all of the berries that remained. He left a few, and instead of putting them in his pail, he pulled out a bottle and held them between his fingers. He squeezed them until the juice poured out into the bottle. It was barely enough for a sip.

This was the present Tamaran, and as the images of their poverty, suffering, and starvation raced across the large screen, almost blinding her eyes, she reflected on this... Since she _was _the princess there, she knew she had to do something to help here home planet from falling apart. And what, exactly, was the cause of this disaster? The Gordanian army, of course. No one on Tamaran knew who was leading their cruel army to send soldiers there. To destroy their crops, to kidnap and murder children, to blast homes apart and steal their valuables.

Raven sat on her round odd canopy bed, uncloaked, just awakening from a nightmare. She knew that this vision was of the past and not the future. For that, she was grateful. She decided that she needed a session of meditation out on the tower's rooftop, and then a drink of tea. So, she raised her hand and a ring of black energy appeared around it, lined in white. A dark pool of the same color appeared on the ceiling, and Raven gently rose off the ground through it. When she came through to the other side, the air around her was cool and a mystic moon peeked out from behind the dark clouds. She sat down on the cool sheet metal and crossed her legs over one another, chanting.

Meanwhile, Starfire had finished seeing the hardships of her people. She got up and returned to her bedroom, where she sat down, crying silently and wondering what she would do.

Raven heard her friend's muffled sobs from below her. She got up and fell once again through a warping mass of shadows. She pulled on her cloak inside her room, and then headed next door to where Starfire was miserable. She smashed the locked door with the palm of her hand, and it slid open with a beep and a hiss. Inside, Starfire was sitting in her pajamas, weeping and muttering to herself in Tamaranian.

"Rah, Gordanian solmorn, plekorph garorph fargnu? Plekorph _garorph _fargnu!" As she finished her rambling, she looked up to see Raven at her doorway. Raven, without saying a word, wandered over to the alien and sat down next to her on the purple bed skirt. She put a pale grey hand on her friend's shoulder, and looked at her.

"What's wrong, Starfire?"

Starfire did not respond, but continued to wail. She buried her face in a pair of soft, orange hands. Raven urged her to share her troubles.

"Come on. Tell me."

"Well…" she began.

"Go on."

"I have been staying up until the midnight to receive transmissions from my k'norfka, Galfore. He sends me images saying that --" She bawled again. Raven patted her back. Starfire continued.

"… Tamaran is in the midst of a famine." Raven gasped.

"Yes. It is because of the Gordanian army. They are attacking us when we least expect it. They are destroying all of our food and shelter. Children must crawl on the ground to search for what remains of these things; they must search for food and water and caves and scraps of cloth. They are suffering," she told her friend.

Raven couldn't believe it. She replied to her friend in a soothing manner, asking her more.

"Can't they just go to Gordania and capture the leader of the army?"

"They can not. There is a circle of charta stones around the barrier. It shocks us so that we cannot get through. We also have no idea who is doing these terrible things."

Raven was livid. She had no idea why her best friend's planet was being destroyed. She soothed her friend more, holding her hand and reassuring her amidst the darkness that was closing in around them.


	2. From Two Planets

**Black Stars – Chapter 2: "From Two Planets"  
**

The next morning, Starfire woke up to the soft chirping of birds and the gentle rays of sunlight coming through her windows. She knew, that no matter how peaceful it seemed on Earth, a war was raging in the Vegan Star System. She might have known it before, but at that moment, the truth struck her. Someone was leading the Gordanian army to attack her homeland. Someone was behind it all. She sighed once more, and dragged her feet along out into the tower's living room. It was very early in the morning, so naturally, only Raven was there.

Starfire took no asking before she seated herself next to the creepy Titan on the couch. She was a bit nervous about talking to Raven again so soon. She could tell that even Raven, who never felt any emotion of any kind, was weighed down by the fact that her friend's people were suffering. Raven, however, kept all her emotions inside. She didn't have to hear anything more of Starfire's whimpering to ask her what she wanted.

" What?" she asked the alien Titan.

"I would prefer it if you not inform the others of what my people are enduring. They will only make the 'big deal' about it. I do not want that to happen." Starfire told her friend, still uneasy about bringing it up again. When she finished rambling, Raven nodded but did not look at her, and said nothing. The sun was breaking through the clouds as the two girls sat in the living room, each minding themselves. A hiss came from behind them. Raven did not notice, or she did not care, but Starfire let out a yelp. The tower door from the hall into the living room slided open, and Robin emerged sleepily, Beast Boy and Cyborg behind him.

"Hey, girls. I didn't know that Starfire was up so early," Robin said, sitting on a chair at the table for breakfast. It was a beautiful day, and Robin started it with his teammates. They each had an enromous bowl of cereal (Beast Boy with non-dairy mik, of course) and stretched out there arms. Beast Boy and Cyborg got onto the couch and scooted Raven and Starfire over annoyingly. Then, the two picked up the ontrollers and a shrill beeping emitted from the television screen. Raven's eyes traveled to Beast Boy, rolled a bit, and went back to the book they were reading. As the two boys were playing and Robin was still having his breakfast, he looked and noticed that Starfire looked a bit... thinner.

"Hey, Srafire. You don't look so well. Have you been eating and stuff lately?" he asked, his brow wrinkling like it always does when he is concerned. At this, Starfire let out another yelp and tried to calm herself down.

"No! Everything is wonderful! Why, friend Robin? Do I seem different to you?" Starfire said frantically, trying to hide the fear she held for her home planet. Robin didn't say anything, but instead opened the door back into the tower hallway and disappeared into the shadows. He knew that something was wrong with Starfire.

Meanwhile, Starfire was still in the living room, accompanied by Cyborg and Beast Boy, who did not notice her fear and sadness at the moment. Raven, at this point, had gotten up and retreated to her room like Robin. She sat on her bed, calming her mind of the images of horror brewing in her head. She had never cared about Starfire's home planet this much before. So... why did she now? Perhaps it was because she had been to the planet herself. Perhaps it was because she was very tight with Starfire. Perhaps it was just because she felt one excuse to let her emotions just a bit through...

Despite what the Titans were doing, a war was brewing in the Vegan Star System. In Gordania's royal palace, endless rows of massive green soldiers with golden armor and bulging lips were marching through the alabaster hallways, each carrying a struggling Tamaranian in their firm graps as prisoners. Among them was the same boy who had gone out searching for what remained of the zorka berry bushes. He had later been assaulted, and his clothes were now stained with his fresh blood. His purple belt was no longer shining, as it was covered in dust from the Gordanian ground as he was dragged on. Finally, he raised his free hand in protest and curled it into a small fist.

"Fargnu relkornph flossek sulchif," he yelled at the soldiers in the odd Tamaranian tongue. The Gordanians around him, however, understood what he was saying without a question. The one beside him knelt down and snickered. He shot back a cruel reply at the young child, sure enough. In English at that.

"Can't we?" he said, and placed a gruesome hand on the boy's hair, ruffling it and jerking his head up.

Meanwhile, in the royal chamber where the Gordanian king and the general of his army sat, the prisoners were thrown at their feet one by one. Each was looked upon, and given the appropriate roommates in the prison, as well as a certain number of whippings before being let retire to their jail cells. Finally, the young boy reached the feet of the two rulers. He gazed upon the king, for their general was hidden in shadows. The king was dressed in slightly ridiculous robes adorned in the finest Centauri diamonds and Psionese gold, from alchemy. He was a grotesque figure, very fat and seemingly bubbling up from his throne. He sported sickly green skin and thick lips. The boy was frigtened, as he could not see the one who would ultimately decide his fate. All he could see was a pair of shining purple eyes, gleaming from under the veil of darkness.

The shadowy figure gasped at the sight of the small boy, so skinny you could see his bones, whimpering on the floor, no older than eleven or twelve years old - but very small despite this. His green eyes, his crimson hair... The general appeared to sneer as they spoke with a cruel attitude.

"He's far too yound to be left without his mother, don't you think? And definitely needs food! Hmm... Fifteen strokes of that whip! Get it going!" the voice commanded. As he heard it, he decided it was an odd kind of female on the throne. Perhaps the queen was the general as well? No, he thought to himself. He was already starving and terrified - this wasn't important right now.

Before anyone in the throne room did or said anything, all that could be heard through the silence was a crack and a scream.


	3. Explanations

**Black Stars – Chapter 3: "Explanations"**

At the tower, the Titans were all gathered in the living room after a hard battle with Plasmus. As Beast boy picked the sludge out of his hair and Starfire was still worrying about her planet, Robin was examining the device he had found lying next to the sleeping prisoner. It seemed like some sort of mind-controlling device – not that Plasmus wasn't a threat already – that made the villain go berserk and thus become even more dangerous. Robin, being himself, obsessed over this while Starfire sat next to Raven on the couch. She knew that because her emotions were so scrambled, she was near useless in the battle.

The Teen Titans were minding their own business. However, none of them paid any attention to the faint streak of orange against the night sky.

Even later at night, Starfire was tucked into her purple bed and was snuggling with her pet, Silkie, gently. She had managed to quit her tossing and turning among the pink covers and finally settle herself into a deep slumber. As her chest slowly rose and fell beneath the flannel and Silkie squirmed a bit in her arms, the orange streak from before drew closer and closer it was traveling slowly, but its power kept moving it forward until…

**CRASH**

The light faded as it collided with Starfire's bedroom window, cracking open a huge hole in the glass and shredding the curtains when it hit the floor.

Starfire quickly awoke from her slumber at the sound, then she gasped at the bleeding, battered, trembling small figure on the floor. It wasn't a bird, or a cat, or a rock. _It was a Tamaranian boy._

It was, in fact, the Tamaranian boy who was whipped by the Gordanians and later on received the help of his cellmates to escape. The same small boy who Starfire had not seen since she left Tamaran, and the same small boy she had never hoped to see—

"Ryand'r!" she gasped. It was enough. She sailed over to the injured boy on the floor, where blood dripped from his backside and stained the carpets on the floor. He moaned as she threw her arms around him in a giant embrace of reunion.

"Ryand'r! I thought I would never see you again, brother! Where have you been?" she asked him as she pulled her strong arms away.

"I was… in the Gordanian p-prisons—" he stammered, and then stifled a cough. Silkie wiggled on over to him and licked his small face, and he laughed with his sweet young voice. Starfire had gotten up and was in the doorway when she spoke to her younger brother again.

"I shall get you 'the food' and bandages, yes?" she asked.

He nodded, and she nodded back and raced out the door. Raven was the only other Titan who wasn't in deep sleep, so she came to see what the ruckus was in Starfire's room. However, she was not prepared for the sniveling little toddler lying on the floor and holding Silkie tight.

"Are you one of Starfire's people?" she asked. He nodded again, when Starfire came bursting through the doorway and pushed Raven aside. She handed the small child a gourd of zorka berry juice and a handful of zorka berries, his favorite food.

When he had finished eating, which didn't take him that much time, he remained on the floor and put his cupped hand to his ear intently. Starfire turned and noticed him listening for sound, as focused on the slightest movement as she had ever seen anyone. He was attentive, but still had terrified wide eyes and was shuddering a bit. She approached him carefully.

"Ryand'r? What is wrong?"

She took his small hand in hers reassuringly, though he was still trembling with fear.

"Someone is coming," he said.

As he trembled and was frightened of the sounds made by other Titans heading towards Starfire's room, the source of the noise. As Cyborg's metal boots made a _klang_ and the warping sound of Raven's gentle hovering approached, Starfire felt something warm where her hand held Ryand'r's. It grew hotter and hotter until it finally burned her hand, and she drew it back. But now her lap was searing with pain and her skirt was burnt through. The skin was red and torn, blistered.

"Ryand'r... when did you recieve these painful abilities?" Starfire asked her brother, still petrified at the four tall Titans in the door, their powers at the ready.

"I was captured by the Psions before _they_ came--" Ryand'r stammered. "The ones who destroyed Tamaran."

Cyborg was in the doorway, his shadow closing in on the tiny child in Starfire's arms. His cannon was ready to fire and Ryand'r was on the verge of tears as the hulking robot-man approached the two on the ground. Robin and Beast Boy followed him, staring at the helpless alien on the rug. Cyborg was the first to ask what was going on.

"Star, who is this kid?" he asked.

"Is he your... son?" Raven asked, turning her head to Robin as she spoke.

Robin, at hearing this, gritted his teeth and a vein on his forehead began to throb with jealousy at the cowering youth on Starfire's bedroom floor. The youth that she was holding so close, so lovingly...

_**Who was this kid?**_


	4. Search and Decision

**Black Stars – Chapter 4: "Search and Decision"**

"WHAT! HOW COULD YOU HAVE LET HIM GET AWAY!" The Gordanian king thundered.

His servants were all bowing before the throne, and some shifted their eyes to the shadowed figure of the general. A wicked purple glint arose from her eyes, and it does not seem like a pleasing flare.

"We are sorry, my lord. As you may or may not know, he used his power to melt the bars of the cell and free—"

"SILENCE!"

Ryand'r and Starfire stood in the living room, the Tamaranian boy refusing to let go of his older sister's hand. Robin's veins were almost pulsing out of his head with jealousy, while Raven stood by and understood perfectly in the silence what had happened. Cyborg and Beast Boy circled the two aliens, staring in awe.

"Hey y'all, check it out!"

"The little dude has the same green eyes!"

"And that red hair."

"And the weird-lookin' bony face!"

"They must be siblings!"

The two boys shouted this last statement in unison, and then Raven crossed the counter and delivered them both an icy stare. They nodded and Beast Boy gulped.

Robin went over to Starfire and stared in disbelief at the little child.

"Starfire, I thought your only sibling was Blackfire," he said sternly, tilting his head from side to side a bit.

"Ryand'r was very young when I left for Earth. It would give you no interest to know about one so young."

Beast Boy continued his questions.

"Does the little dude have powers like you?"

Starfire looked down at her brother, who seemed a bit more at ease. He looked up at her, and shivered a bit.

"Rethmog, plekorph garorf fargnex? Hezbar norelf kabrorzketeck fraguntoof…"

"What did he just say, Starfire?" Raven asked.

"He is afraid and does not understand what you are saying."

Back on Gordania, the general finally rose to her feet and stepped out from the shadows. She sported long black hair past her waist, a very dark lavender dress down to her feet, black steel armor around her arms and waist lined with silver, and a black brooch at the clasp of her pure black cloak.

"Go and find that child. And once you have him, I won't let him out of my sight." She said, her hands pulsing with radiant violet energy.

"Go!" she commanded.

The armored men shuffled off in fear, and the general took her seat again.

Back to Titans' Tower, where Ryand'r was quaking in his little boots, waiting to hear what the Titans would say next.

"He is here because he was captured and then escaped from the enemy. He does have great power, and he will aid us if we allow him to stay here for just a small while." Starfire said.

The rest of the Titans looked at each other, knowing that they all must help the child. Then again, would _he_ help _them_, or just take up space? Robin knelt down to look at him, and Ryand'r edged back slowly behind the protective figure of his sister. Robin stood up again, and nodded to Starfire.

"We'll let him stay. But, I think that if we want him on the team, he should train with us tomorrow. Until then, we'll help him with his English and provide him with all of the stuff we get. He can use Terra's old room."

That single name was like a sharp blow to Beast Boy's heart.

"Terra…"


End file.
